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How to Make a Drupal Theme

Making a custom Drupal theme is actually quite easy. A Drupal theme is just a few PHP files, a CSS file, and an info file. I prefer the PHPtemplate theme engine (the default one) but you have several choices. See the bottom of this post for a link to the official Drupal Theme Developer's Guide which has information on other Drupal template engines.

The following information was originally written for Drupal 4.7, but has been updated for Drupal 6 on March 4, 2009.

Navigate to your /themes directory. You should have a theme there called /bluemarine. We will use that as an example.

NOTE: before you edit any files you will copy the theme to another directory and rename it. Your custom themes go in the directory /sites/all/themes/. Details about that come later in this tutorial.

Here is a list of the files in the Drupal 6's Bluemarine theme:

The Files of a Drupal Theme

bluemarine.info — A required file that is new to Drupal 6 which provides information about the theme.

page.tpl.php — The main template that defines the content on most of the page.

style.css — The CSS file that sets the CSS rules for the template.

node.tpl.php — This file defines the content of the nodes.

block.tpl.php — Defines the content of the blocks.

comment.tpl.php — Defines the content of the comments.

logo.png — Your logo, if you are using one.

screenshot.png — This is a screenshot of your theme that is used in the admin panel and in the user account settings if you have enabled more than one theme so that visitors can choose which theme they want to use.

style-rtl.css — this file is new to Drupal 6's Bluemarine. I think it's a CSS for right to left languages and can be ignored if you're using a left-to-right language like English.

page.tpl.php and style.css

The page.tpl.php and style.css files are the main files for your Drupal theme. The page.tpl.php is a mix of HTML and PHP. Look at the file and notice which snippets of PHP are used where. For example, the following snippet from the page.tpl.php file inserts the site's <head> information. Just copy that snippet into your own custom Drupal template.

The following code from the Bluemarine page.tpl.php file use PHP if statements to print out optional information such as primary links, secondary links, and site slogan. You control whether those display in the Drupal control panel. The Bluemarine template uses tables, but you can easily remove the tables and make it a 100% CSS-based template.

The Drupal styles.css File

The style.css file is straightforward. I recommend the Firefox Web Developer Toolbar for creating the style.css file. Use the toolbars option Display ID & Class Details in the Information menu to view the CSS classes and ID's that Drupal is generating. Then add your own CSS rules to the style.css file.

Other Drupal Theme Files

Other files in the Drupal theme are block.tpl.php, box.tpl.php, comment.tpl.php, and node.tpl.php. Each one controls the layout of certain parts of the template. The comment.tpl.php defines the comment layout as shown below. It is fairly straightforward PHP: "If there is a user picture, print the user picture, etc.

Your First Custom Drupal Theme

Just make a copy of the default Bluemarine template and put it in your Drupal /sites/all/themes/ directory. That directory doesn't exist by default, so you should create it if you haven't already. See the README file in /sites/all/ for more information. Rename the copy of Bluemarine to the name of your new theme. Enable the new theme.

NOTE: In Drupal 6 there are also theme info files. To change the name of the theme you'll also need to change the name in the bluemarine.info file:

Then strip most of the HTML out of the page.tpl.php file and replace it with the HTML that you would like for your theme. Leave the PHP, modifying it as desired. If you are using Linux for Web development, you can use Quanta Plus as an editor to edit your template files directly on the server. Each time you save the file in Quanta Plus, the remote copy of the file will be updated.

Use the Firefox Web Developer Toolbar'sDisplay ID & Class Details feature to view CSS information on your new template that you are viewing the the browser. Either start a new style.css file from scratch, or modify the existing one to get the template the way you would like. To edit the display of blocks, nodes, and comments, edit the block.tpl.php, node.tpl.php, and comment.tpl.php files respectively.

When you are finished with your template, take a screenshot and resize it to about 150x90 pixels. Upload it to your theme directory as screenshot.png.

Drupal Template Variables

The PHP snippets in the examples above are just printing PHPtemplate variables. A complete list of available PHPtemplate variables that you can use in your template can be found on Drupal.org's PHPtemplate variables page. Below are the available variables from 24 July 2007:

$breadcrumb

HTML for displaying the breadcrumbs at the top of the page.

$closure

Needs to be displayed at the bottom of the page, for any dynamic javascript that needs to be called once the page has already been displayed.

$content

The HTML content generated by Drupal to be displayed.

$directory

The directory the theme is located in , e.g.

themes/box_grey or themes/box_grey/box_cleanslate.

$footer_message

The footer message as defined in the admin settings.

$head

HTML as generated by drupal_get_html_head().

$head_title

The text to be displayed in the page title.

$help

Dynamic help text, mostly for admin pages.

$is_front

True if the front page is currently being displayed. Used to toggle the mission.

$language

The language the site is being displayed in.

$layout

This setting allows you to style different types of layout ('none', 'left', 'right' or 'both') differently, depending on how many sidebars are enabled.

$logo

The path to the logo image, as defined in theme configuration.

$messages

HTML for status and error messages, to be displayed at the top of the page.

$mission

The text of the site mission.

$node

(5.x and after only)If you are in page.tpl.php displaying a node in full page view then $node is available to your template.

$onload_attribute

(4.7 and older only) Onload tags to be added to the head tag, to allow for autoexecution of attached scripts.

$primary_links (array)

An array containing the links as they have been defined in the phptemplate specific configuration block.

$scripts

(5.x and after only) HTML to load the JavaScript files and make the JS settings available. Previously, javascript files are hardcoded into the page.tpl.php

$search_box

True(1) if the search box has been enabled.

$search_button_text

(4.7 and older only)Translated text on the search button.

$search_description

(4.7 and older only)Translated description for the search button.

$search_url

(4.7 and older only)URL the search form is submitted to.

$secondary_links (array)

An array containing the links as they have been defined in the phptemplate specific configuration block.

$sidebar_left

The HTML for the left sidebar.

$sidebar_right

The HTML for the right sidebar.

$site

The name of the site, always filled in.

$site_name

The site name of the site, to be used in the header, empty when display has been disabled.

$site_slogan

The slogan of the site, empty when display has been disabled.

$styles

Required for stylesheet switching to work. This prints out the style tags required.

$tabs

HTML for displaying tabs at the top of the page.

$title

Title, different from head_title, as this is just the node title most of the time.

There are also other variables available for your Drupal theme. A good list can be found in Chapter 8 of the essential book Pro Drupal Development. I believe that Chapter 8 is a free sample download.

I'd like to replace the blue gradient of blue marine at the top (header) with an image - yet I want to retain the text with the slogans, title etc. Is this possible (maybe by using a partially transparent image) - if so where would I make changes? I'm having trouble locating where the gradient is created. I do see where the logo.png is.

Also, what/where is the "bar" separating the top area from the main body of the page created. I understand that some of this might be done using CSS. I need some help identifying the parts so I can *intelligently* try to experiment with altering them. Thank You.

Are you sure you mean the Bluemarine theme? Bluemarine doesn't have a gradient in the header.

Use the Firefox Web Developer Toolbar to display ID and Class information (in the Information menu). You will see that the header has a CSS ID called #header. You will also find other classes and IDs like .logo, .site-name, .site-slogan. Those control the display of the elements in the header.

You can use the Web Developer Toolbar to edit the CSS live on the page by going to CSS > Edit CSS. Edit the tab style.css (the CSS file from your theme). In Bluemarine (at lease in Drupal 5.1) you will see the following code:

#header {
background-color: #69c;
height: 100px;
}

Change that background-color to whatever you want. Or insert a background image by adding it there.

My Themes is based also on “bluemarine”. It gives thereby only few disadvantages: “bluemarine” consists it of tables and is not always good. I have try a Theme without tables to create, me however did not succeed :( I have myself decided my Themes on tables to develop. My last Themes can see here:

One way to make Drupal themes without tables is to look up css layouts in Google. Then download an open-source CSS layout that you like. Put the main HTML in a Drupal template file called page.tpl.php. Insert the PHPtemplate variables into the HTML (a list of PHPtemplate variables is listed above). Put the CSS in a file called style.css.

Then add the other Drupal template files like block.tpl.php and comment.tpl.php. You can essentially copy those out of Bluemarine because they don't have tables in them.

Some places to find CSS layouts for making tableless Drupal themes are:

Hey i know its kindo of dumb but, i've reading about customizing theme and some how i cant even change some minim details like backgrounds and stuffs.

I foun the #header and i did change a least the color but when i save the style.css nothing happens... its like they ignore my changes. If theres a manual where i can step by step (jaja its kind for dummies) change a theme or some one who can tell me how to make one or better if you guys can tell me how you do it. I have some skills of html (know the language) but i just can read css. Any way, some other guide i do apraciate.

"I'd like to replace the blue gradient of blue marine at the top (header) with an image..."

Do you mean Bluemarine or Garland? I don't think Bluemarine has a header gradient. If you want to modify a theme I don't recommend starting with Garland. Bluemarine is a good beginners' theme, and after that try the Zen theme.

Hi there! Im just a newbie. I have this problem when I copied the garland theme to sites/all/themes/ directory and named it to something else but I can't see it in the themes list on my drupal site. I tried also putting it together with the core themes, under themes/ directory but I can't still see it on the theme list. Anyone can help me please..

I tried downloading some custom themes and put in on the sites/all/themes directory. The first one didn't also appeared on the themes list but the second one does. Then I notice of a INFO file common on the themes that are on the list. I tried to edit this file on my custome theme and it appears now on the list!

Hi. I am web developer in php and mysql. i have created a website www.rnpexports.com. i want to implement a own html page theme on this site. so can you help me, how to implement? please send your answer to rituraj.onnet@gmail.com. thnx in advance.

I'm trying to build my own theme for my site but I can't enter the page.tpl.php. It said that I'm forbidden. I logged in to the site as admin already and even logged in at the one that host my site but it still says I'm forbidden. Please help me!

I’m having a problem styling the div.rounded-block, I edited the png files so they had transparent backgrounds, but the left side of the block is just showing up white. Here’s a screen capture of the block Casino Slots Online .I’m thinking its because the div’s background image is actually longer than the block.How do I fix this?